Please help me out: Squat problems

Hello all,
I've been working out for about 6 months now, and I've had good progression in all exercises. I don't have the money for a personal trainer, so I was hoping to get a little advice on my squat technique. I thought I was doing fine, until I heard my hip elicit a loud nasty "pop" about a month ago. It hurt like a b!@# for a good 4 days and has been sore since. I was squatting 265*5 reps*3-5 sets when it popped and I squatted for the first time since Wednesday. I did 155*5*3 without a hitch but I made sure to go much slower and focus on my hams, quads, ab- and adductors. I still felt shaky when I got into the bottom of the squat though. What am I doing wrong? I posted a vid of my technique below.

Using 265 for reps is good for only training 6 months. Any chance that you were bouncing on the bottom? It almost sounds like some type of dislocation of the hip joint, and it may happen again if that is the case. I think you made the right call going slow. When I squat, I tend to lean forward slightly (bad technique), and I always go down until my thighs are parallel to the floor. I have never experienced a hip pop as you did, so this is just my opinion. You might try leg presses some also - they tend to be stricter and may help the hip heal fully. Good luck and keep progressing.

My hip flexors or something in my hips are pretty sore after squatting, but I've never had a pop. I wish I could see the video to see exactly how you're squatting. I'm still improving my squat technique after years of training.. It's tough to get it perfect.. I agree with MEPSE, take it slow, ease back into the squat and use other machines/exercises to make up for your lighter squat workouts..

Are you doing barbell squats or smiths? If barbell, perhaps perfect your form on the smith and then return to the barbell. To bad there is no vid!

This is terrible advice, how can you perfect squatting inside a smith machine when it doesn't allow you to have a natural bar path? Not to mention all the stabilizing muscles won't be getting stronger while you are on a smith machine so when you do go to free squat you will run into problems. Smith machines are useful as a towel rack, and that's about it.

A) do not listen to anyone that tells you to get into a smith machine as they are obviously a gigantic female gash.

B) I have no idea what your hip popping was, but I can give you the basic description of what you should be focusing on with regards to your form..after all, I am the self proclaimed squat master..

1- start with having a good spotter. They should be able to help you with any alignmnet issues you may be overlooking and save your ass in a pinch.

2- Stance depends on what part of the leg you are targeting,
wide is a lot of glutes, hams and adductors
shoulder width - I feel it in my lateralus
12-14" apart (close) medialus and femorus
3- pull your shoulder blades in together, take a deep breath in, and push your chest out. some prefer to look up as it helps them keep a positive arch in your back

4- go down in a controlled manner and DO NOT bounce unless you have something against your knees and would like them to be punished.
5- your knees should travel directly over your toes and your shoulders should make a straight line with your ankles.
6- keep your weight on your heels, it saves your back. Try to stay as upright as possible.
7- You better go down at least parallel or I will come and kick your skinny ass off my squat rack and have all the little gym bunnys making fun of you

Hey everybody,
Thanks for all the great advice, and the advice about the Smith machine.

MEPSE- you called it, I bounced out of the bottom. Now, in retrospect, wtf was I doing?

The tough thing is that I've never had any squat coaching, so I might need to get a personal trainer for a day or something. I've been going slow and controlled into the hole on every rep and exploding out of it like my skinny ass is on fire, per codywaters' instructions. It's working, I'm upping the reps to 10, so my last squat day I did 205x10x3, which should be a warm up, but I'm just glad everything is working the way it should.

The worst thing about the whole ordeal is that I was on week 2 of an h-drol cycle and I lost a lot of good leg training time while all of my other maxes went up. I was hoping to get a few reps at 305 out of it, but now it'll probably be a few good months before I get back up to where I started.

codywaters - thanks, I had been doing squats with the same stance, about shoulder width w/ feet at 30 degrees the whole time. I'll definitely be switching it up from now on, which will probably allow me to squat 2x a week. I greatly appreciate your sensei-like tutelage. Repped.

It's been 2 months since my hip popped and I haven't gone over 215 since. I took my time and worked my way up doing sets of 10, but my hip always felt shaky at the bottom of the movement.

Last Saturday, I asked one of the huge guys at the gym for his opinion, and he recommended box squats. I did them today, using my bench as the box, and it was AWESOME. I did 225 for 6 sets of 5 and they felt great.

The bench is 20" tall, and after examining the depth of the movement I see that if the crease of my hip isn't breaking exactly even with the top of my knee it is only 1/2" high at most. I'm using the "box" as a trigger that lets me know when to explode out of the hole.

Like I said, I felt great and strong doing these today, like I'm back in the game. Now I have some questions:

Should I actually sit on the bench at the bottom of each rep and therefore cut out the elasticity and make the action of the squat more like a deadlift? Or, should I keep using the bench as an explosive trigger?

Are recommendations? As long as I'm doing these correctly, I think I can work back up to my previous max's and beyond fairly quickly.

Codywaters - Don't say this is as bad as the Smith machine. But, if it is I have to know.

Box squats are a very good tool. Hell, if Dave tate uses them, they must be the **** right? The are usually used to take the "bounce" out of the squat. The way I have always done them is to try to stop about an inch above the box and then gently place my bum on the box. If you just drop down on it, you will then be putting your spine under a very high amount of compression and thats just not a good thing to do if you like walking. Take 2-3seconds to let your muscles unload then fire up.

Now, it sounds like you may be using it as an indicator to change direction. Thats fine but once you do about a million squats you will most likely not need it any more.

I've never done box squats, but they do make sense. They should be great for making sure that you are getting low enough, which is the problem that I note the most at the Gold's where I train. Let us know how they work - I am going to try them this Thursday.

Fukc me. I didn't even see your post the first time around. Those videos are another great resource. I'm glad I watched them, because I haven't been sitting back into the hole nearly enough. It's going to take a lot of practice to get the form down. That's what Dave Tate meant in codywaters' article posted above when he said most people exhibit their best form when they're sitting down to take a siht. It makes so much sense, but it's going to be tough learning to drive with the gleutes.

I have a video of myself squatting, but I'm still working my way up in posts to be able to include the link. I work out in my garage, so any advice would be appreciated once I get it posted.

I just got lost on a youtube adventure through all kinds of Westside Barbell stuff. Damn I wish I could bench 5 plates.

Thanks, I appreciate it. If I could only get around the windows media player 11 validation screen I'd be in business. fml. I'll have to give it a shot on my wife's computer, I think she has a genuine copy of windows. They're so hard to find these days.